Xload accepts all of the standard X Toolkit
command line options (see X(7)
). The order of the options in unimportant.
xload also accepts the following additional options:

-hl color or -highlight
color

This option specifies the color of the scale lines.

-jumpscroll number
of pixels

The number of pixels to shift the graph to the left when the
graph reaches the right edge of the window. The default value is 1/2 the
width of the current window. Smooth scrolling can be achieved by setting
it to 1.

-label string

The string to put into the label above the load average.

-nolabel

If this command line option is specified then no label will be
displayed above the load graph.

-lights

When specified, this option causes
xload to display the current load average by using the keyboard leds; for
a load average of n, xload lights the first n keyboard leds. This option
turns off the usual screen display.

-scale integer

This option specifies
the minimum number of tick marks in the histogram, where one division represents
one load average point. If the load goes above this number, xload will
create more divisions, but it will never use fewer than this number. The
default is 1.

-update seconds

This option specifies the interval in seconds
at which xload updates its display. The minimum amount of time allowed
between updates is 1 second. The default is 10.

-remote host

This option
tells xload to display the load of host instead of localhost. Xload gets
the information from the rwhod database and consequently requires rwhod
to be executing both on localhost and host.

In order to specify resources,
it is useful to know the hierarchy of the widgets which compose xload.
In the notation below, indentation indicates hierarchical structure. The
widget class name is given first, followed by the widget instance name.

This program requires the ability to open and read the special
system file /dev/kmem. Sites that do not allow general access to this file
should make xload belong to the same group as /dev/kmem and turn on the
set group id permission flag.

Reading /dev/kmem is inherently non-portable.
Therefore, the routine used to read it (get_load.c) must be ported to each
new operating system.